2013: First Festival of Joy

Since 2013, the Austrian federal government and the City of Vienna have been hosting a Festival of Joy on the Heldenplatz in commemoration of Europe's liberation from National Socialism. The event is organised by the Mauthausen Committee. The Festival of Joy is meant to keep alive the memory of the liberation from National Socialism. Up until the introduction of this festival, members of German nationalist fraternities and individual FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party) officials held “commemorations of the dead” on the Heldenplatz on 8 May. These “commemorations of the dead” were meant to cover up the liberation from National Socialism in 1945 and to revert attention back to the German victims of war without addressing the German war of aggression against almost all of Europe.